World Sex Sells News

Here's a bit of new year reminiscing from a policeman. Could have been almost anywhere and at any time in the last few decades.

Dealing with the different types of sex establishments that sprung up was no easy task for many reasons.

First, the premises did not operate on any license so we could not prosecute them for breaching licensing conditions. They usually had a good lookout system, which warned them of police raids, and they probably had some policemen on their payroll. And as they had many dedicated customers, even if they were closed down, they could reopen under another name and business registration within a very short time.

Police resources used to deal with these premises were quite significant and often at the expense of other duties more important to the well-being of the community.

Securing enough evidence for a prosecution was easier said than done because the agent provocateur had to go to the premises more than once to gain the confidence of the operator and female server. So prosecution was not such a good option.

The next best thing we could do was work on the customers because we believed no customers, no sex shop. Customers who frequented sex shops could be real diehards and unless they were personally troubled, they did not mind the inconvenience of being kicked out while police were inside, only to return as soon as we were gone.

So the only way to get at the customers was to involve them in police action but they were not, strictly speaking, suspects. That meant there was little, if anything, we could pull them back to the station for, except to verify their identity. But at the time it was not mandatory to carry an identity card.

Harassment, albeit a bit tongue-in-cheek, was the only action we could think of to use. So we decided to bring everyone back to the station who would not provide their address.

Every customer on the premises when we visited would be asked for their address and telephone number and those who failed to give them would be taken back to the station for further inquiries. Those who gave them were released after we called their home or had colleagues visit the address given.

In both cases their families would know they were in trouble and worse still they were in a sex shop.

In fact the story comes from the mid 70's in Hong Kong from  thestandard.com.hk by JS Lam who served with Hong Kong police for 36 years.

There has been no official word from Craigslist, but it appears the company has yanked prostitution ads from its Canadian websites.

The move comes after months of lobbying from Canadian nutter politicians. When you log on to the site, the erotic services section did not appear on most of its Canadian home-pages, including the Vancouver site.

Crisis worker Alice Lee with the Vancouver Rape Relief and Women's Shelter calls it a positive first step: It's true there are other websites, however Craigslist is the biggest and the most popular.

The federal government is happy with the move. But after a detailed search, some recently posted erotic ads still pop up, only they're listed under a different category.

Update: First the US, then the World

21st December 2010.

It now appears that the recent removal of Craigslist erotic services section in Canada was reported too narrowly.

Reports are now coming to light that the erotic services section has been removed worldwide.

Update: Confirmed

23rd December 2010. See  article from  google.com

Connecticut attorney general Richard Blumenthal said legal representatives for Craigslist had confirmed to his office that erotic and adult services sections had been removed from the company's websites around the world.

China's Ministry of Public Security (MPS) has claimed that the special campaign to crackdown on prostitution has been effective, with cases of prostitution and obscene performances in entertainment venues in October dropping 18% on a month-on month basis.

The campaign in the latter half of the year attached increased importance to the investigation and punishment of the organizers of prostitution.

The campaign also targeted business operators and the protective umbrellas - sometimes local government officials - that allow prostitution to happen, according to a document released at a ministry work conference.

According to the document, the MPS sent 27 groups of inspectors to 651 entertainment business venues in four municipalities and 20 provinces during the campaign. At some 381 of the venues, cases of prostitution or 'obscene' performance were discovered.

The proposed .xxx domain is so controversial that ICANN over the years has had to create new processes, policies, and appeals procedures just to handle the various flavours of outcry.

That has happened again this week, due to an unprecedented decision by ICANN to formally disagree with the opposition to .xxx coming from its Governmental Advisory Committee.

The GAC is a collection of civil servants who represent dozens of world governments. Its advice is given considerable weight under ICANN's consensus-driven decision-making rules.

By saying it intends to enter into a registry agreement with ICM Registry for .xxx, ICANN has – for the first time in its 12-year history – formally put the GAC on notice that it intends to reject its advice.

This means that the ICANN board and the GAC will have to meet face-to-face to thrash out their differences at a meeting scheduled for February 2011.

Faced with a $133 million deficit, one western German city has introduced a day tax on prostitutes to help whittle down its budget gap.

The new pleasure tax requires prostitutes in Dortmund to purchase a $8 day ticket for each day they work, or face a potential fine. The city estimates that the new tax will add some $1 million to its coffers each year.

City spokesman Michael Meinders told Reuters. We considered several sex taxes but this was the most practical proposal.

The new tax went into effect in August but the day tickets have not been available until this week.

An alternative proposal was to charge a $1.33 or $2.66 fee to anyone entering Dortmund's red-light district, but this idea got little political support, Meinders said.

Such taxes are not unusual in Germany where prostitution is legal and sex workers must pay tax on their income. Cologne introduced a $200 pleasure tax on sex workers in 2004 and later added an $8 day tax option for part-time prostitutes.

Malaysia's Home Ministry will carry out a study to impose heavier penalty on VCD and DVD distributors and traders who break the Film Censorship Act 2002.

Its deputy minister, Datuk Wira Abu Seman Yusop, said the ministry, through its Control and Film Censorship Division, found that the current sentence of a fine of up to RM50,000 or five years' jail or both on distributors and traders of pornographic VCDs and DVDs did not commensurate with the offence committed and not keeping up with time.

The ministry is in the process of evaluating provisions in the existing Film Censorship Act to make the law more effective. He said the study would be carried out with a view of amending the law to provide for a heavier sentence on offenders.

Abu Seman said that the ministry's Control and Film Censorship Division had conducted 12,509 operations since 2005, involving seizure of about 2.8 million films in the form of VCDs and DVDs, and the arrest of 3,326 people.

Three months after Craigslist scrapped sex service ads from its websites in the United States, the online classifieds giant has refused to take similar action in Canada.

Now, a nutter law professor and 'expert' on human trafficking says a massive boycott is being planned for the new year if the company continues posting its erotic services ads. The boycott will involve students, victims groups and non-governmental organizations.

They are completely disrespectful to Canada. There's no principled reason for why they're ignoring repeated requests to stop this online flesh market, Professor Benjamin Perrin, author of Invisible Chains: Canada's Underground World of Human Trafficking , said.

Perrin and other critics have hyped that Craigslist has become the medium of choice for sex traffickers to advertise their victims -- including children -- for sale.

Over the last several months, those calling for the removal of the sex ads have grown to include attorneys general in B.C., Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Ontario, as well as federal Justice Minister Rob Nicholson.

RCMP police officials have a more realistic approach to the issue. A spokeswoman in Ottawa said that officials are in ongoing discussions with the company to prevent Craigslist from being used to facilitate illegal activity, as well as to identify victims and offenders.

Lucy Shorey said the RCMP cannot simply shut down the erotic-services section of the site because the vast majority of the ads do not violate any criminal law.

Iranian officials have sentenced a man to death for allegedly running a porn site in Canada.

According to the Toronto Globe and Mail, Saeed Malekpour was sentenced after being convicted as corrupt on Earth and a warrior against God.

Malekpour is an Iranian-born Canadian resident and returned to Iran to visit his sick father in October of 2008, that's when he was put in Tehran's Evin Prison and where he was given the news of the verdict.

His wife said her husband's lawyer is appealing the case to Iran's highest court.

Meanwhile, the Canadian government is blasting Iran over the death sentence. Melissa Lantsman, spokeswoman for Canadian Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon, said:

Canada remains deeply concerned by the continued flagrant disregard of the Iranian authorities for the rights of Iranians. This appears to be another case in which someone in Iran is facing a death sentence after a highly questionable process.

We continue to call on Iran to respect its domestic and international obligations and ensure fairness and due process for all its citizens and others.

A call to ban alcohol from Victorian strip clubs has infuriated venue operators.

The Coalition Against Trafficking Women Australia (CATWA) claim in a report that strip clubs harm women, increase crime rates and act as a gateway into prostitution.

The activities that take place in the clubs are clearly sexual and often involve a good deal of physical interaction between male buyers and the women who strip. Strip clubs often provide links to other sex industry services and in some clubs the full range of prostitution activities is available, even though they are technically illegal.

The report says these venues can't be seen merely as entertainment, that they have far more in common with brothels and, therefore, need similar restrictions and bans on liquor licences.

But Melbourne strip club owners are strongly rejecting suggestions they are somehow linked to rising crime rates, the exploitation of women or prostitution.

Nightclub Owners Forum spokesman David Butten said: First and foremost, these are licensed venues. The fact that it caters for a certain market is irrelevant, he said of strip clubs, adding that no clear link has been established with alcohol-related harm: Erotic entertainment has quite a distinction from sexual services, and any suggestion that women are being exploited is false.

There are seven strip clubs in Melbourne's CBD and 20 venues across the state that offer tabletop to private dancing: Many women who choose to work in strip tease do not want to work in prostitution, Butten said.

The Nightclub Owners Forum billed the latest push to strengthen laws against them as a moral and religious crusade.

Based on article from  sexparty.org.au

Sex Party President, Fiona Patten, said that the group's allegations of a proliferation of strip clubs did not stand up to scrutiny:  Since the first club appeared in Melbourne's CBD nearly 20 years ago, there are still only seven clubs in the CBD and no more than 20 across the entire state . It is ludicrous to even suggest that this represents a 'proliferation'.

Ms Patten said that CATWA embraced a lesbian separatist philosophy on sexual matters that was fundamentalist in nature and supportive of the Swedish model of regulating prostitution - which was not to regulate it at all, but to jail men who engaged in commercial sexual services. In Sweden the language of lesbian separatists now means that any man who engages in a normal commercial sexual service is officially said to be involved in 'sex trafficking'.

These fundamentalist feminist groups have also picketed Sexpo recently and their sexual agenda is similar to fundamentalist religious campaigners like Fred Nile. If these genteel 19th century notions of entertainment take hold in modern Victoria, thousands of people will be out of work and the tourism economy would take a huge hit.

Women have called for the legalisation of sex toys in Swaziland, following the recent disapproval of sex shops by several parliamentarians.

Mimi Nkonyeni-Khumalo, of the Swaziland National Youth Council (SNYC), was speaking on behalf of the women's wing during the presentation of recommendations by all the attendants.

She said women reserved the right to choose what they can use to satisfy their sexual desires. Therefore, as women, they saw no valid reason why they were being deprived of their inviolable right to choose.

Parliament must allow the use of sex toys because it is the right of women to choose, said Khumalo, much to the applause of the crowd.

National Emergency Response Council on HIV/AIDS director, Derek von Wissell, said he also noted the plea by the women's wing, but said that it was as a result of sexual dissatisfaction in most relationships: Sex toys would not be needed if women were sexually satisfied by their sexual partners. The lack of sexual satisfaction also contributes to the acceleration of multi-concurrent sexual partners in the kingdom.

Some politicians have called for Botswana to consider legalising prostitution to fight against HIV.

Botlogile Tshireletso, a deputy minister, told the BBC it was time for the government to discuss the issue.

A BBC reporter says despite research that infection rates are worst along commercial truck routes, there is an unwillingness to legalise brothels. The BBC's Letlhogile Lucas in the capital, Gaborone, says many people in Botswana disapprove of sex workers and they are often harassed by police.

Ms Tshireletso, assistant minister for local government, has broken ranks with her cabinet colleagues. My opinion is: We should consider looking at it because it is there - we should as government take the initiative to do something to help these workers, she told the BBC's Network Africa programme.

Opposition leader Dumelang Saleshando agreed but said it would be an uphill struggle. Firstly the majority view is very clear, Botswana is against the legislation making illegal sex work a legal economic activity, he told the BBC. But at the same time you can't ignore it… the industry itself is one of the drivers of the virus, he said.

Legalising sex work will help us to stand up for our rights… and get support for HIV and Aids, one sex worker in Ledumadumane, a neighbourhood on the outskirts of Gaborone, told the BBC. Another commercial sex worker said: I know I'm not safe because when I'm doing it outdoors I can get raped or even the client can rob me.

Our reporter says everyone in Botswana is entitled to free condoms from health centres. But the sex workers complain that police officers often confiscate their condoms, telling them their trade was illegal, he says.

A Canadian judge has extended unsafe sex-trade laws while the government prepares an appeals against the court ruling that decriminalized prostitution in Canada.

Prostitution itself is not illegal in Canada, but communicating for the purposes of prostitution, pimping and operating a brothel were considered criminal acts.

Ontario Court of Appeal Judge Marc Rosenberg ruled that the stay on decriminalisation will be extended until April 29.

Update: Mean Minded Minister of Injustice

5th December 2010. Based on article from  pr-usa.net

Rob Nicholson, Minister of Injustice and Attorney General of Canada, made the following statement following the Ontario Court of Appeal's decision to stay the Ontario Superior Court's decision on the Bedford Prostitution Challenge until final disposition of the appeal:

The Government is pleased that the Ontario Court of Appeal has stayed the lower court's decision. This means that the challenged Criminal Code provisions remain in effect until April 29, 2011, or until the appeal is heard by the Ontario Court of Appeal, whichever is the earlier.

It is the position of the Government of Canada that these provisions are constitutionally sound. The provisions denounce and deter the most harmful and public aspects of prostitution. They also ensure that the police have the tools necessary to continue to address the significant harms that flow from prostitution, both to communities and to the prostitutes themselves, along with other vulnerable persons.

The Government of Canada is committed to the health and safety of all Canadians [except sex workers] and the well-being of the country's communities and will continue to defend the constitutionality of these Criminal Code provisions.

Bahrain's first sex shop is about to expand with the opening of its second branch in Manama, Gulf Daily News (GDN) has reported.

Khadija Fashion House has signed a three-year lease at Yateem Centre, located on the outskirts of the Manama suq, and could open its second outlet next week.

Talks are also taking place that could see Bahraini owner Khadija Ahmed open a similar shop in Qatar.

She said massive demand for her products, which are designed to spice up couples' private lives, was driving the expansion of her business - adding that perceptions of her trade were slowly changing.

However, Ahmed said it was unlikely that she would open a third shop in Bahrain - adding that much of her business came from neighbouring countries.

I don't have any plans to go ahead with opening more outlets in Bahrain as the customer base is not strong, she said: Most of my products are sold in neighbouring Gulf states where customers place bulk orders.

However, it has not been easy and Ahmed had faced problems importing products with Customs authorities, while the Industry and Commerce Ministry banned the import of certain sex toys in August.

Brothel owners are predicting booming business during the Rugby World Cup as thousands of fans look to score off the field.

And that demand is likely to fuel an influx of overseas prostitutes who will try to work here illegally.

An estimated 85,000 rugby fans are expected to come to New Zealand for the event next year. Immigration authorities say they will be on alert for prostitutes during the lead-up to the tournament.

A brothel owner told the Herald on Sunday he expected dozens, and potentially hundreds, of overseas prostitutes to 'flood' New Zealand. He said being part of a human-trafficking chain would also tarnish New Zealand's reputation.

Immigration New Zealand is aware there is likely to be increased demand for illegal workers during the tournament, as the influx of international visitors increases the demand for services.

Head of Immigration Nigel Bickle said anyone in New Zealand on a temporary permit working in the sex industry would be removed. Immigration officers spoke to people in the sex industry regularly to identify illegal workers, he said.

The small minority of people who are tempted to take advantage of this event for their own unlawful purposes are warned that we will not tolerate abuse of the immigration system and firm action will be taken against those who try, Bickle said.

An international erotic fair, the first such event in Croatia, saw hundreds of people flocking to see the offer.

They came to the Zagreb trade fair to enjoy live performances by some 15 international porn stars, male strippers, topless DJs or buy some of the sex toys offered at dozens of stands.

Around 100 exhibitors from eight countries, including Britain, Germany, Japan and the United States, displayed sexy lingerie, films, calendars and other sexy items.

The biggest crowd, mostly men, gathered around a stage were a stripper was undressing, taking photos of her with their mobile phones.

The programme is very good, commented Gordan Budimir but he complained there were too few exhibitors . The organisers probably knew that there would be fewer visitors than at similar events abroad since people (here) would be ashamed if someone saw them.

Lawyers for Canada's federal government said that Canada is on the brink of launching an unprecedented social experiment if three key prostitution laws are lifted this Saturday.

The government appeared in the Ontario Court of Justice on Monday to seek a ruling that would delay the lifting of the laws.

But Justice Marc Rosenberg, from the Court of Appeal for Ontario, reserved his decision on Monday, saying that he would attempt to issue a ruling by the Saturday deadline.

If the Ontario Court of Appeal does not agree to give the government more time to consider an appeal, it could mean the end for a number of laws that have effectively criminalized prostitution.

A September ruling by the Ontario Superior Court of Justice struck down laws against keeping a common bawdy house, communicating for the purposes of prostitution and living on the avails of the trade.

Prostitution is not illegal in Canada, but nearly everything related to it is. Lawyers who fought for the end of those laws said the adjustment would mean safer conditions for sex-trade workers.

In a ruling released in September, Justice Susan Himel determined the laws created a dangerous environment for sex-trade workers: I find that the danger faced by prostitutes greatly outweighs any harm which may be faced by the public .

Update: On Hold

28th November 2010. Based on article from  thestar.com

Saturday marks the expiration date of the 60-day stay on Justice Susan Himel's landmark court decision to strike down Ontario's prostitution laws.

But nothing will change for the province's sex workers this weekend, as the Court of Appeal continues to mull over an application by the Crown to extend the stay until the federal government can prepare a proper appeal.

The court's decision won't make the Nov. 27 deadline, but it will come sooner rather than later, said John Kromkamp, senior legal officer for the appeal court: I can't tell you whether it will be Monday or Friday or a week Friday, he said. We try to get our decisions out as quickly as possible. The court will give a day's notice when Rosenberg's decision is ready.

In an appeal court hearing on Monday, all parties agreed that the struck-down laws would remain in place until Rosenberg makes a decision.

no no no no no no no...maybe!

The Vatican has appeared to expand the Catholic Church's tolerance of condoms as a means of fighting HIV, backing their use by female prostitutes, days after the Pope said their use by male sex workers was better than spreading the virus.

Pope Benedict XVI was quoted at the weekend saying condom use by male prostitutes could be a good thing, indicating the user's intention to protect others from a deadly infection, apparently condoning the use of contraceptives for the first time. The Vatican then confirmed that the same message applied to women sex workers. Related articles

Observers said the pontiff's message that condom use, and its inherent ability to prevent conception, was justifiable on health grounds, represented a seismic shift by the Church. This is a game-changer, said James Martin, a Jesuit priest and culture editor of the religious magazine America.

Gentlemen's clubs are suddenly a thriving part of Malta's nightlife industry.

As a young woman gyrates suggestively around a pole in the skimpiest of underwear, other scantily clad women mill about – some seated by the bar, others chatting to customers or among themselves.

This is not Las Vegas but Paceville, Malta. Yet gentlemen's clubs have proliferated, with seven now located in the heart of what is the country's most popular nightlife district.

This newspaper visited seven gentlemen's clubs in Paceville and one in Sliema on two Friday nights between 10 p.m. and 3 a.m. to witness what goes on behind the darkened doors.

The clubs are not difficult to find as their employees are out in full force on the streets of Paceville, handing out flyers and enticing revellers inside. Entrance to all the clubs was free.

The ambience inside was not dissimilar to any other nightclub: dimmed lights, loud music and a bar. But unlike other establishments, patrons were sitting down, leaving the dancing up to the girls .

Although prices varied somewhat, in several clubs the journalists were quoted €15 to €20 for a private basic lap dance, €40 for a private topless dance and €70 for a private nude strip dance. Private dances take place in either lockable booths or curtained-off areas.

Despite licensing laws permitting premises to stay open no later than 4 a.m., dancers in two of the clubs said they typically finished work at 7 a.m. at weekends – around the time the last customers leave.

None of the clubs were packed but clients were predominantly local and western European males aged between 20 and 50. Female customers were rare.

In each location, The Sunday Times was approached – but not harassed – by the dancers within minutes of entry into a club and offered private dances. In two clubs, dancers encouraged the journalists to buy drinks for them at €6 each, with one girl explaining she received commission from drinks bought for her.

Generally, the women did not give the impression they were there against their will. Indeed, there seemed to be a certain camaraderie between them. But behind the smiles, one Hungarian dancer admitted she wished she could do something else – but she needed the money.

Are these clubs legal?

There is no specific classification for gentlemen's clubs in terms of licensing – they are licensed by the Malta Tourism Authority as regular bars, discos or nightclubs. The type of entertainment offered in a bar, nightclub or disco does not need to be specified when applying for a licence, meaning owners are free to change their premises into a gentlemen's club if they abide by the conditions of their current licence. Maltese law is clear on two counts: no brothels and no indecency. But it does not distinguish between an entertainment nightclub and a pole or lap dancing club.

In 2005, the police arraigned a club owner and dancers over indecency, but the magistrate's decision was clear-cut: being skimpily dressed did not amount to indecency. The Attorney General has appealed against the decision but the case has stalled because the dancers have since left the country. However, a similar case is pending before another magistrate.

On the recent boom in gentlemen's clubs, one owner said: You know what it's like in Malta – when we see something successful that someone else has, we want it as well.

Drinks are not expensive and we offer a nice alternative to normal bars and clubs, which makes us popular. Our club is clean, there is waitress service, the music is not too loud and generally it is more of an upmarket environment. That means we attract different types of people – not just men but mixed groups, women, gay people... our club is for everyone.

Dancers are contracted at our club – it is like hiring a barman, there is no difference. Girls are aware of their duties and regulations... I don't want to go into detail about 'no touching' regulations and things like that because legally it is a grey area, but our club is very clean and law abiding and we look after our staff.

What happens in the booth?

David, 18, said: I was out with the lads celebrating my 18th birthday. A host of one of the gentlemen's clubs approached us and encouraged us to go in.

The boys paid for a private dance for me – €25 for the duration of two music tracks. The dancer was perhaps about 25 years old. She was wearing hot pants and a bra – and didn't take them off at any point.

Halfway through the dance, I started touching her. She didn't move my hands away. The dance lasted about three minutes.

I often go to these clubs, but don't always buy a private dance. It's like a bar, but one where you're surrounded by beautiful women.

Update: Police Comment

17th November 2010. Based on article from  timesofmalta.com

Nudity or semi-nudity is absolutely not permitted in gentlemen's clubs, according to the police, who have defended the way they are monitoring the booming gentlemen's club industry.

Their defence comes in the wake of the above story in The Sunday Times. In response, the police said all clubs are monitored and inspected regularly.

The police also call (at) these places in plain clothes to check working permits and other issues, such as age and residence in Malta. Police also check if there are any immoral acts being done in these clubs or in places accessible to the public since nudity or semi-nudity is absolutely not permitted.

The Swedish government plans to invest 10 million kronor ($1.49 million) to enable state agencies to develop clearer 'ethical' guidelines for civil servants working overseas in order to curb the buying of sexual services and improper sexual relations.

The measures include education, a common website and guidance materials that will be developed.

It is clear that everyone knows that you cannot buy sex, surf for porn during work hours, or come as a rich man or woman and sexually exploit someone living in poverty. That much we know. But it must be made clear in a document what you can do and cannot do, Gender Equality Minister Nyamko Sabuni told the Svenska Dagbladet.

However, she said that the government is reluctant to put its foot down and establish standard general guidelines. Different agencies have different needs, she told the newspaper. You can't compare the military in peace-promoting missions with agencies which maybe only travel to Brussels.

The government has not investigated how common the purchase of sexual services, visits to porn clubs and the sexual exploitation of locals is among Swedish civil servants, soldiers and aid workers.

Sabuni instead used media coverage on Swedish soldiers who bought sex in Germany and UN staff who exploited the local population in the Congo, to illustrate the problem.

A study commissioned by the government showed that only one-fifth of all government agencies have some form of 'ethical' guidelines and the government hopes that the 10 million kronor allocation will address this.

Even though they suspect that this is bad behaviour, it should be clear what the consequences are if one violates the ethical guidelines. It is difficult for the employer to take action when it is not known from the beginning that it is a violation of the guidelines. Clarity is needed, said Sabuni.

According to the New York Post, Berth Milton, CEO of Private Media, wants to open as many as 100 sex hotels in cities around the world where guests could stay for free - if they agree to have sex in front of Web cams. Their sessions would then be broadcast on the Web to subscribers, the story says.

The hotels would be luxury hotels.

Milton believes porn fans will pay to watch amateurs having sex. He estimates that subscriptions could bring in about $44 million annually: The important thing is to go all the way - not halfway or a third of the way.

Milton researched the concept by visiting more than a dozen swingers clubs around Barcelona, the story says: It has to be a hotel for non-swingers as well -not super explicit where everybody's running around naked. That takes the style and class out of it.

Mara Carfagna and Silvio Berlusconi have announced a mean minded package of measures to ban prostitution in public places.

In a week when the latest of several women claimed to have been paid for sex by Italy's prime minister, he chaired a cabinet meeting that approved a bill outlawing prostitution.

Mara Carfagna, the former topless model who is Berlusconi's equal opportunities minister, told the website Clandestinoweb a package of security measures that will now go to parliament included a ban on prostitution in all public places.

It emerged last week that three associates of the prime minister were formally under investigation on suspicion of profiting from prostitution. They include his TV network's best-known newscaster, a talent scout who supplies many of its showgirls, and a former dancer who was Berlusconi's dental hygienist until he plucked her from obscurity to be a regional MP.

The porn-only .xxx internet domain is set to come under review by international governments, after ICANN deferred voting on the proposal until December.

This week, the organisation decided to refer the controversial domain to its Governmental Advisory Committee, which may prove to be the last hurdle it has to jump before being approved.

The Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) has historically been less than keen on the idea of a domain just for porn, so ICANN's move could be seen as a setback for ICM Registry, the company behind the proposal. If the committee arrived as a consensus against .xxx, it could hurt the domain's chances of being approved.

But Stuart Lawley, ICM's president, said he believes the GAC consultation, is just a formality: We understand that ICANN wants to cross all of its t's and dot its i's by reaching out to the GAC . We welcome the board's resolve to move forward expeditiously, and continue to look forward to a first quarter launch.

The .xxx proposal is opposed by many in the porn business, and notably, the Free Speech Coalition, a US-based trade association for the adult entertainment industry. Stuart Lawley can stand on the rooftops and shout that this is a done deal all he wants but this is an insurmountable obstacle for ICM to overcome, FSC director Diane Duke said in a statement.

Canadians are about to see a lot more of themselves on screen, albeit scantily clad and perhaps in some compromising positions.

Or so promises the first homegrown Canadian adult-oriented entertainment TV channel, which went on the air Thursday at 10 p.m.

The Montreal-based cable network, called Vanessa, went live first with its French channel, with an English counterpart to follow next year.

Its focus is not hardcore, but rather the softer side of sex. The channel will only show triple-X films after 11 p.m.

There is nothing like this in Canada, says Vanessa's content manager Pierre Thibeault. It's the first time Canadians will be able to see themselves as much as they will. This will be the case not only in the films they put on air, Thibeault says, but in programs that talk about sex — reality series, for instance, or sitcoms.

Anne-Marie Losique, known as Quebec's Queen of soft porn, and also head of the production company Image Diffusion International, is the woman behind Vanessa. She promises that the new network will show at least 40% homegrown content — double the amount than its carriage licence requires.

Taking advantage of the long festival season in Nepal, groups from India's Bihar state across the border are bringing hundreds of Indian women to the Himalayan republic to stage obscene nude dance shows, a media report said. [Perhaps from the same school of journalism that reports 40,000 sex workers travelling to major sporting events].

Private Nepali television station Avenue TV aired scenes taken with a hidden camera where a garden had been turned into an orgiastic scene with scantily clad women cavorting to the tune of Hindi songs.

The report said such dance shows, featuring hundreds of Indian girls, were being organised by groups from Bihar like New Mina and Madhubani Club. It named at least two senior police officials, alleging they had been among the spectators.

The television station claimed the dances were obscene with the girls shedding all their clothes, a punishable offence in Nepal.

The news comes as Kathmandu police have begun an anti-vice drive in the capital, cracking down on the city's dance bars and massage parlours that also allegedly serve as a front for prostitution. Police say some of the well-organised businesses operating in Kathmandu involve sex workers from India.

Sex workers on the street outside a town northern Spain have been ordered to wear reflective vests supposedly to make them visible to passing traffic and reduce the risk of accidents.

Women touting for customers on a rural highway outside Els Alamus near Lleida in Catalonia have been told to don the yellow fluorescent bibs or pay fines of 40 euros (£36) under road traffic laws.

Police claim the sex workers on the LL-11 road are not being specifically targeted because of what they do but because they posed a danger to drivers.

The prostitutes are in breach of 2004 law which states pedestrians on major highways and hard shoulders must wear the high visibility garments.

The move follows recent legislation introduced by Els Alamus town hall to ban prostitutes from offering sex for sale in public urban areas. The mayor Josep Maria Bea has been accused of mounting a campaign to drive the sex workers out of the area.

The Paradise night club, touted as the largest brothel in Europe, has opened for business after a Spanish town failed to stop it in the courts.

Police patrolled the roads outside the Spanish town of La Jonquera and 15 security guards kept watch as the opening night crowd filtered in on Thursday.

I give the girls breakfast, lunch and dinner and they get to keep whatever they make. Do you call that exploitation? a Paradise manager told reporters as a group of middle-aged French men left their cars for the club, which looks like a disco that overdosed on neon. The club, which measures 2,700 square metres and boasts 80 rooms with rates of €120 (£107) per hour, is one of 11 so-called macro-brothels in this Catalan region of Gerona, near the Costa Brava.

Roughly 1,800 prostitutes reportedly sell their services there [Other reports suggest a more believable 180]. And many local restaurant owners and other residents are pleased with the business they attract. Except for a handful of local priests, few Spaniards have attempted to throw cold water on this industry.

But the mayor of La Jonquera, Jordi Cabezas, refused to give the club an operating licence, claiming that a police report warned the brothel could cause security and public order problems. The club owner, identified as Jose Moreno in the Spanish press, had been arrested in September, along with 40 other people, in connection with an alleged sex trade trafficking ring. He was charged and released pending trial.

Moreno has denied involvement with trafficking rings. I run three places. Who would think that I would get involved in something like that? It doesn't make sense, he told El Pais newspaper. Moreno took the town to court and won. In February, the Supreme Court of Catalonia ruled that police speculation was not sufficient grounds to dampen the libido of paying customers. The ruling was not surprising in Spain, a traditionally Catholic country that has long tolerated prostitution.

Moreno, denies he is exploiting women: They are adults, they know what they are here for, and that's all that I ask of them .

The women refused to comment to the horde of reporters at the opening. We come to Spain for sex, said one of the men: In France, this is illegal. The girls are very pretty, another man said with a nervous giggle.

If you are one of those who enjoy having pleasure in the bosom of commercial sex workers in Nigeria's Federal Capital Territory (FCT), this may interest you.

The Minister of State for the FCT, Navy Captain Caleb Olubolade (rtd), has vowed to deal with highly-placed Nigerians, politicians and others who patronise prostitutes in Abuja.

According to Olubolade, street prostitution is illegal for anyone involved both sex workers and customers.

He warned: The fact that the FCT Minister, Senator Bala Mohammed, and I are very committed to the ban on the despicable act is enough to scare any influential Nigerian from involving in such act.

He, however, assured repentant commercial sex workers of the government's readiness to train them in various skills in order to make them productive and useful to the society

Alarmist predictions that tens of thousands of sex workers would descend on South Africa to cater for football fans at this year's World Cup were debunked this week by a survey showing there had been no surge in prostitution.

The survey carried out by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and the Cape Town-based lobby group Sex Worker Education and Advocacy Taskforce (SWEAT) among 663 sex workers in Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban, found no major increase in demand during or since the World Cup.

The survey also showed that the proportion of foreign sex workers decreased rather than increased during the tournament.

Before the World Cup, several local and international media outlets had quoted an official from South Africa's Central Drug Authority as saying that up to 40,000 foreign sex workers were expected at the tournament.

Although our survey revealed a small increase in the number of sex workers advertising online during and shortly after the World Cup, our findings do not provide evidence for the massive increase in supply of sex work around the World Cup, as anticipated by the media, the researchers said.

The survey also found no evidence of a surge in the trafficking of women and children for sex work - as had also been predicted by some agencies.

Manitoba will follow Ontario's lead in demanding that the online service Craigslist stop carrying ads for sex-trade workers in Canada.

Justice Minister Andrew Swan, attending a meeting of Canadian attorneys general in Vancouver, said that he will write a letter to Craigslist in the hope that they'll voluntarily pull those ads -- as the company did in the United States following pressure from state officials.

Ontario has led the way. We plan to follow along and we hope those ads will also be removed from Canadian websites, said Swan, noting that the issue has come up in talks with his fellow provincial justice ministers.

Three Ontario cabinet ministers wrote to Craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster Sept. 14 to applaud the service for agreeing to requests from attorneys general south of the border to shut down links to prostitution-related ads. The ministers noted, however, that the company had yet to do so in Canada.

Craigslist has said it has not removed the erotic services content from its website in Canada because it's not been pressured to do so.

Bulgarian authorities have brought charges against a French man for creating and distributing porn on the Internet.

Jean Noel Rene Clair, well known for JNRC labelled gay porn, was also charged for persuading 10 men to fornicate, according to a national radio report.

Officials say Clair stored the recorded material, which consisted of various male sexual encounters, on thousands of files and distributed them on the Internet on more than 20 websites, some of which were managed by Clair himself.

He was arrested last May at the time of filming and he could be facing up to 10 years imprisonment.

Whether to legalize the sex industry was once again the focus of discussion at the Taiwanese legislature after the Ministry of the Interior the day before announced its policy direction on the controversial subject.

Following a public hearing on the matter, the ministry said in a statement that most participants were inclined to allow sex workers to work in what it called independent studios of three to five people, which would avoid corporate control of the sex industry.

The statement said most participants did not want to see the development of red light districts and would rather that certain neighborhoods — such as school zones or areas in the vicinity of religious institutions — be designated by local governments as off-limits to the sex industry.

The ministry has been in serious discussions with various groups and academics about ways to legalize prostitution after the Council of Grand Justices declared a clause in the Social Order Maintenance Act banning -prostitution unconstitutional and said it would become invalid in November next year.

Minister of the Interior Jiang Yi-huah said at the Internal Administration Committee meeting yesterday that although the ministry had yet to make a final decision on how the sex industry would evolve after next year, the majority view expressed at a hearing would help shape the policy.

Environmental organisations have expressed outrage over a plan by local authorities in the Abruzzo region of central Italy to combat prostitution with deforestation.

For decades, local law enforcement and politicians have struggled to police the Bonifica del Tronto road, a haven for the sex trade that runs inland for more than 10 miles from the Adriatic coast alongside the river Tronto. Over the years, cameras have been installed, raids mounted, 24-hour patrols implemented and the mayors of towns near the road have signed bylaws imposing fines on prostitutes' clients. All to no avail.

At the end of last month, the regional government's public works chief, Angelo Di Paolo, announced that the time had come for drastic measures. He said he had agreed with provincial and municipal representatives to cut down all the vegetation around and along the banks [of the river Tronto] , in which the prostitutes ply their trade.

In a statement three environmental groups, including the WWF, said that the scheme would destroy 28 hectares (69 acres) of woodland vital to local ecosystems. The authorities, they added, had not even taken into account mitigating circumstances . Among these are having absorbed thousands of tonnes of carbon dioxide and given man precious oxygen, they said. They also prevented fertiliser and pesticides from reaching the river.

A census this month by an NGO found almost 600 prostitutes at work on the Bonifica del Tronto.

Canadian prostitution laws that were struck down by an Ontario judge last week will be extended another month.

When Justice Susan Himel handed down her decision Sept. 28, she also delayed her order from taking effect for 30 days. Now, the grace period is going to be extended an extra 30 days.

Alan Young, the lawyer who argued the case for the winning side, said that he's agreed to a Crown request for a longer grace period.

Simply because they look like they're panicking and in disarray and I feel somewhat sorry for them and I imagine if you've had a bad law for 30 years, another 30 days isn't going to make a huge difference, Young told Global News: After that, I put the gloves back on for the fight.

Young said the Crown will likely go to the Court of Appeal to try to get another stay. But they don't have good evidence for it, because they're going to say the sky is going to fall if they don't have the law. They tried that in the hearing itself and the judge didn't buy it.

The order will be officially signed on Tuesday. It gives the federal government until the end of November to decide upon its next step.

More and more Koreans are buying or selling sex overseas in more diverse, bolder, and sophisticated ways. Hong Jung-wook of the ruling Grand National Party has accused the government of being negligent in taking action against them, according to

At a National Assembly interpellation session to audit the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Hong said that much evidence of the overseas sex trade is scattered on the Internet and some agencies are openly recruiting girls for prostitution.

For instance, a tourist agency posted schedules for sex tours — which included information about types and number of times of prostitution, and prices ranging from 1.2 million won to 2.2 million won — on online community websites.

Another website recruited Korean women to work as prostitutes abroad, with the ads claiming that women can earn up to 45 million won per month in New York.

Rep. Hong visited Phnom Penh in Cambodia, popular for sex trade among Korean men, and found that they were the main target of the prostitution businesses there.

He went to three Phnom Penh brothels, and he found all of them were looking for Korean tourists. One of them hired minors, he said.

Despite this rampant overseas sex trade involving Koreans, he accused the government of being lax in cracking down. The government has confiscated passports of those who are caught buying sex and restricted the issuing of new passports since 2008. However, only 16 people were punished in 2008; 16 in 2009; and 38 in the first half of this year.

The government needs to come up with stronger measures against those who trade in sex abroad, which could severely harm the national brand of Korea, Hong said: The government could have cracked down on such websites mediating prostitution abroad, but they seem to have given up doing so.

From January of 2011, a revision to the section of the Japanese adult-entertainment law that pertains to love hotels will come into force.

The weekly tabloid, Shukan Asahi Geino, reports, that the industry will be in for a shake up. The revisions are intended to remove prostitution and porn shoots from hotel premises.

There are two types of love hotels, explains journalist Akihira Otani. Those operating under the approval of the Law Regulating Adult Entertainment Businesses and those operating as lodging entities under the conventional lodging law, just as with any hotel or ryokan you may see.

Giso (camouflaged) love hotels operate under the conventional lodging law yet provide adult-oriented gear, such as dildos, he continues. In both cases, one can go straight to a room without being seen. This is believed to be a contributing factor to crimes for which this revision is designed to counter.

The revised law will extend the list of requirements for love hotels to become eligible, says a reporter who covers social issues. Most notably, guests will be asked to register personal information at the front desk. Other measures mainly deal with the establishment's facilities and layout.

Infrastructure must be in place to ensure that room fees are clearly shown and automatic room-fee payment machines are situated in every guest room, continues the source. Further, the entire building must be designed so that guests will not be visible by staff members in common areas. These latter requirements are to specifically impact pseudo-love hotels, which contain nearly standard hotel rooms and open hallways and common areas.

A male guest laments the move. Checking in and facing the staff members defeats the whole point of the love hotel, he says. It's intended to be a discrete environment.

Thousands of women from India's north-east have been hired by escort agencies for the Commonwealth Games, a rights group has claimed.

Impulse NGO Network says it fears the girls will be pushed into prostitution. The group said nearly 40,000 women were hired from seven states with promises of lucrative pay.

Authorities said they were unable to confirm the number.

Escort services advertise in newspapers and are suspected to be fronts for prostitution.

Hasina Kharbih, chairperson of Impulse NGO Network, a rights group that rescues women trafficked from north-eastern states, said they had closely monitored the large-scale hiring of women from the north-east for the Commonwealth Games. We are indeed very worried for our girls because so many of them have been recruited for escort services. They have been lured by good money and future jobs, said Ms Kharbih.

Prostitution laws in the Australian Capital Territory (Canberra) will be reviewed for the first time since being introduced 18 years ago.

The review has been partially prompted by a letter from a coroner who conducted the inquest into the death of 17-year-old Janine Cameron who was found dead in a Fyshwick brothel two years ago.

Attorney General Simon Corbell says the coroner's comments will form part of the terms of reference for the review: Whilst the coroner made no adverse findings in relation to that matter, the coroner has drawn to my attention his view that it would be worthwhile for the Government to look at the issue of proof of age and to make sure people working in brothels were requiring a higher level of proof age and identity before they commenced work.

Corbell says the Government remains committed to a regulated sex industry: It's a good thing. It keeps it out in the open. It keeps it public and transparent and it stops black market and illegal activities occurring within the industry.

But there are I think areas for some potential improvement. Those include issues potentially around proof of age to make sure people who are working in the industry are appropriately demonstrating that they are 18 years or older.

There may be other issues arising as well that stakeholders want to express a view on and this review will allow that to occur.

The Government will move a motion in the Legislative Assembly next month referring the Prostitution Act 1992 to a committee.

The Opposition has welcomed the move. Shadow attorney general Vicki Dunne said: There have been issues raised as to whether or not individual sex workers should have registration, compliance inspections and the level of police activity around brothels in the ACT and what developments there may have been both interstate and overseas that have moved on public discussion about the regulation of prostitution.

A trendy hotel offering guests a range of complimentary sex toys in their rooms has been criticised, but staff say customers love the move.

The Berns Hotel in Stockholm, Sweden recently expanded the range of items it offers guests from tea and coffee, minibar drinks and a Bible, to include sex toys such as vibrators, handcuffs and stockings.

Miserable local authorities, who have been working with the city's hotels to stamp out prostitution, are furious over the move. The hotel is trying to glorify something that we are working to de-glorify, local police officer Tom Eckerling told the Sweden's The Local news.

However the hotel remains defiant, insisting that it has received a positive response from guests. It has no plans to remove the items from guest rooms. However staff usually remove them from rooms used by families, the hotel said.

There is nothing ugly with sex, that is something that we want to show, the hotel's reception manager Andreas L'Estrade said.